


Siren Song

by yuletide_archivist



Category: seaQuest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stories say that when you hear her voice you can't help but go to her.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Siren Song

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Rana Eros

 

 

Title: Siren Song  
Fandom: SeaQuest  
Rating: PG  
Summary: Stories say that when you hear her voice you can't help but go to her.

......

He was back in the raft. The storm was rushing around them like a raver on speed. Waves taller than the Chrysler building towered over them, crashing into the raft. Dr. Westphalen's lips were moving. She was shouting something, but Lucas couldn't hear her. It was a familiar dream, a nightmare he'd been having for over a month and he recognized it immediately, but this time something was different. Usually the howling of the storm drowned out the doctor's words but this time the storm was silent and even though he could see her lips moving the doctor was mute. Instead Lucas's ears were filled with the most beautiful singing he'd ever heard. A woman's soprano melted around him like rich thick syrup. It clenched his insides and made it hard for him to breath. Lucas was no longer in the raft. He was in the heart of the storm and the voice was his only companion. Then even the storm faded away and Lucas opened his eyes and awakened from the dream, but the voice remained, calling him, begging him. Her love, her body, everything he yearned for would be his if only he would come to her. He could feel her words in his head and his heart, and he could not refuse.

Lucas dressed hurriedly and rushed to the bridge. It was quiet and slow when he got there. Captain Bridger and Commander Ford were bent over the interactive globe and Ortiz was carefully navigating one of the WSKRs into an underwater trench they were exploring. Lucas paid no attention to any of them. He was focused solely on the voice. He sat down at the communications station and opened a channel into the sea. Suddenly the bridge was filled with singing. It was enveloped in a blanket of sound so sweet it almost hurt to hear.

Lucas had to go to her. He needed to be with her. He needed to rescue her. Lucas punched a button and spoke.

"Hello?" Where are you? Tell me where you are and I'll come get you."

"Lucas, what are you doing? Who are you talking to?" The captain crossed the bridge and stood in front of Lucas. He gazed down at the boy as if he could stop whatever was going on just by wishing it hard enough. When Lucas did not reply the Captain turned and began shutting down the link. He closed off the link allowing Lucas to send messages but before he could close down the receiving link Lucas attacked him. Lucas fought the captain like an animal gone mad. He shoved at the captain, kicking and biting with a desperate ferocity. There was no recognition in his eyes. He wasn't even looking at the Captain. He was still staring out into the ocean, but he would not let the link close.

"Don't! You can't! She's still out there! Can't you hear her?" Lucas shouted madly.

"Who's still out there?" The captain asked. With Commander Ford's help he finally managed to get Lucas away from the communications station. "Lucas, what the hell is the matter with you?"

"Can't you hear her, Captain? She's calling me. She needs my help. Can't you hear her?" Lucas cried. His attack had grown weak and there were tears in his eyes. The captain continued to hold him while Ortiz called for the doctor.

......

In the medical bay Lucas lay quietly on one of the four hospital beds. Dr. Westphalen had sedated him and she was now monitoring his vitals.

"Is he going to be okay?" Captain Bridger asked? He stood at the foot of the hospital bed and listened to the quiet beeping of a heart monitor playing in the background.

"Physically there's nothing wrong with him. Emotionally and mentally, well, I have no idea. I don't understand what happened." Dr. Westphalen said.

"He kept asking me if I could hear her."

"Hear who?"

"That's just it. I have no idea. I didn't hear anything unusual other than Lucas himself."

"Hallucinations?"

"What else could it be?"

Captain Bridger and Dr. Westphalen stared at each other; horror dawning in their eyes until static squawked out over the loudspeaker causing them both to jump. They laughed nervously and Dr. Westphalen clutched at her heart.

"Captain Bridger to the Sea Deck. Captain Bridger to Sea Deck." The loudspeaker continued to squawk urgently. The Captain patted Luca's shoulder and stared pointedly at Dr. Westphalen. She took the hint and followed him out of the bay.

"Keep him sedated until we know what's going on. I don't want him wandering the ship doing God knows what."

"I will, Captain. I have more tests to run. He won't be alone. You better hurry up to the Sea Deck."

......

On the Sea Deck everyone was in an uproar. Darwin was in the center of it. He was in his tank thrashing about in the water and making high-pitched squeals and clicks. He was obviously panicking and none of his clicks or whistles was being translated. The captain paused on the edge of the chaos. He noted the divers ready to jump in the tank if the order was given, the scientists administering tests and shouting orders, and in the middle of it all was Tim sitting at the edge of the tank talking quietly to Darwin. When the Captain reached his side he looked up.

"I can feel him in my head, but I don't know what it means. I don't understand him at all."

"It's alright Tim. We just have to calm him down before he hurts himself...or someone else."

The captain knelt down beside Tim and put a hand out toward Darwin. There was a connection there between Tim and Darwin. He wasn't sure what it was and he assured himself that he wasn't jealous of it, but, if he could, he would use it to stop whatever it was that happening on his ship.

"He just started going crazy, Captain, and we can't seem to stop him." One of the scientists said.

"Sedate him." The captain said. "Don't put him out. Just give him enough to calm him." The captain shifted toward Tim and lowered his voice. "Tim, I need you to stay with Darwin. Keep trying to get through to him and if anything changes get me."

"Captain, you're not staying?" Tim asked. The Captain looked down on the young communications officer. Tim was always a nervous individual, but never a coward and even though he was shaking out of his UEO regulation boots the captain knew he could trust him.

"Darwin isn't the only one going crazy. We had to sedate Lucas. He's with Dr. Westphalen now."

"What is going on?"

"I wish I knew."

As Captain Bridger fought his way out of the crowd of scientists still circling the tank the PA system came on in a rush of static.

"Captain, Lucas has...Oh, dear, I do believe I'm bleeding."

......

Kristen Westphalen was no wilting flower. When her life began to look like a James Bond movie she updated her will and dared fate to bring on its worst and when fate met her challenge and she was absolutely certain she was going to die on a raft in the middle of the ocean well Dr. Westphalen wouldn't let even certain death stop her, but when a boy she had begun to love as much as she loved her own child viciously attacked her she was shaken. She hesitated to fight back, hesitated to harm, and for her troubles she was now lying on the floor of her own infirmary bleeding from a gut wound and trying desperately to remember why she always thought she had to goad fate into a fury.

As she lay there contemplating the captain sprinted in and dropped to his knees next to her. His hands pushed into her wound causing her to cry out, but also slowing the bleeding. His eyes scanned the empty room and she could almost see his mind creating and discarding a hundred solutions almost at once.   
"Where the hell is everyone?" He asked after what was probably only seconds, but felt like hours.

"There's been..." Dr. Westphalen took a deep breath and tried to speak through the pain. "There have been medical emergencies all over the ship. People are going mad. I don't understand it."

"Who's off duty?"

"Dr. Carter."

"You just stay put. Try and keep pressure on this wound. I'm going to call him. You've lost a lot of blood." The captain quickly replaced his hands with her own and reached for the communications unit.

"Dr. Carter to the Medical Bay. Dr. Carter to the Medical Bay, immediately."

"Oh, dear, I think you better put me on one of those beds, Captain. It's rather cold down here on the floor."

Captain Bridger lifted her onto a bed and covered her as much as possible with two of the thin blankets that lay at the end of each bed.

"We have to get this bleeding to stop."

"Keep applying pressure until Dr. Carter gets here. He'll do the rest."

......

Oblivious to the chaos in the rest of the ship, Chief Morale Office Benjamin Krieg walked down an empty hallway his attention on the comic book he held in his hand. One of these days someone was going to draw a comic book heroine in a whole shirt and on that day Ben would swear off comics forever, but until then they were a guilty pleasure he happily indulged in.

"Hey, Lucas, I got a new shipment of..." Ben started to say as Lucas darted down the hall past him. "Lucas, where's the fire?" Ben called after him.

"I've got to save her. She's dying." Lucas shouted.

"Who's dying?" Ben asked as he raced after Lucas.

"Her. Can't you hear her singing? She's so scared."

"Singing? Lucas, you're making no sense. What the hell is going on?"

"I'm going to save her." Lucas said as they reached the shuttle deck. Lucas quickly unlocked Sea Crab1.

"Lucas, what the hell is going on?" Ben screamed. Panic was setting in and easygoing scheming Ben was suddenly placed in a position that he spent most of his life dreading. Ben was not a fan of tough choices no matter how many times he was forced to make them. Lucas was going to take off in one of the sea crabs after some imaginary woman unless Ben stopped him and Ben was pretty sure this was one of those situations he couldn't resolve with slick speech and a charming smile.

"Lucas, stand down."

......

"Captain Bridger to the bridge." Commander Ford's voice came over the PA system.

"I'm a little busy right now, Commander Ford." Captain Bridger said as he continued to apply pressure to Dr. Westphalen's wound

"Sir, you're going to want to see this."

"Handle it! I'll be there as soon as I can." Captain Bridger snarled. Dr. Westphalen had lost consciousness almost two minutes ago and Dr. Carter was M.I.A.

"Come on, Kristen, now is not the time to lay down on the job. You've got to wake up."

"Captain," Commander Ford's voice sounded around them again. "I really think you should get up here."

"Commander Ford, call a code red. I will be up there as soon as Dr. Carter..." The missing Dr. Carter finally showed up to the Medical Bay. He was a slight man with salt and pepper hair and wire-framed glasses that were now drastically askew on his face. His lab coat was rumpled and there was something that looked suspiciously like blood on the sleeve. He looked like the quintessential absent-minded professor, but Captain Bridger had never been so happy to see anybody in his entire life.

"Dr. Carter, where the hell have you been?"

"I don't know if you've noticed, Captain, but the ship has gone insane. Half the crew seems to be hallucinating and is attacking the other half. You're lucky I made it here at all. What has happened to Dr. Westphalen?"

"Scalpel to the stomach. It went pretty deep. The bleeding has slowed but she lost a lot of blood. I don't know if it hit any organs. She's been unconscious for about four minutes. I have to get to the bridge. When I leave lock this door and don't let anyone in until the I drop the code red."

......

Jonathon Ford was not a man who panicked. He was a man who stood calm and unruffled in a crisis. He made decisions and he stuck to them. He'd been called a born leader, but at the moment he would like nothing better than to hand over the reigns of the SeaQuest to the captain so he could curl up in a corner and panic. The bridge was all but quarantined from the rest of the ship. All of the bridge crew who had, for lack of a better word, gone insane were already locked in their quarters. The ships medical staff was dealing with them the best they could. Only Lt. Commander Hitchcock and Chief Shan were still acting normal, but he largest cause for Commander Ford's desire to panic was the thing less then five kilometers ahead of the SeaQuest.

At first Commander Ford thought it was some sort of squid, but then it looked more like a giant sea serpent, and then Commander Ford swore it was a beautiful woman. It was all of these things and more. He couldn't make out what exactly it looked like, but it was big. He just knew it was big. Every time they discovered something new in the ocean it turned out to be a big vicious creature that tried to kill them. Commander Ford really didn't want to be responsible when that thing ate everyone on board.

"What the hell is that?" Captain Bridger said when he finally appeared on the bridge. He looked logical and in charge, if not exactly calm.

"I don't know sir, but considering the reactions most of the crew is having I'd say it's not good."

"How do you know that thing is causing all of this?" Captain Bridger asked. He didn't turn to look at the commander, but instead continued to stare at the creature on the screen in front of him. It was massive and kept changing shape. Captain Bridger was never sure of what he was looking at.

"Occam's Razor, Sir. The simplest answer is usually the right one." Ford answered him without turning away from the creature. No one on the bridge seemed able to turn away from it.

"How would it be causing this? Is it producing toxins? Is it psychic?"

"I don't know, Sir, but whatever it is I believe we should get out of range as soon as possible."

"I agree, but if it is psychic I don't know what would happen if we broke the connection so abruptly. The crew might have adverse reactions."

"Lucas..." Ben's voice suddenly filled the bridge. His voice was breathy and filled with pain. "Lucas stole one of the Sea Crabs. I tried to stop him, Captain. Something's wrong with him."

The news snapped the bridge crew back into action and the captain's face settled into one that Ford recognized from every other crisis they'd had. The face said that the Captain would do what needed doing no matter what.

"Commander Ford, get a computer technician up here. I want the technician and Katie to get us control of that Sea Crabs navigation system. Bring it back here. Chief Shan, get ready to retreat on my command." Captain Bridger spit out orders before storming out of the bridge.

"Captain, where are you going?" Ford called after him.

"I'm going to check on Dr. Westphalen and get an medical opinion about the psychic theory."

"Has she gone crazy, too, Sir?" Chief Shan asked.

"No, Lucas stabbed her."

......

Dr. Carter was still operating on Dr. Westphalen. Her kidney was nicked and she had lost a lot of blood, but Dr. Carter was able to hypothesize about the current situation while he operated.

"If the creature is psychic then that could explain the symptoms most of the crew seems to be portraying. The creature could be giving off a low level psychic pulse to attract prey. The pulse would cause those who hear it to project an image or sound that draws the prey toward the creature. It's quite fascinating if you think about it."

"Half of my crew has lost their minds and Lucas has stolen a sea crab. Interesting isn't quite the word I'd use."

"Sorry, of course not."

"What if we moved out of range? Would everyone go back to normal."

"Yes, in a manner of speaking anyway. The hallucinations will stop, but I cannot even begin to imagine the psychological ramifications of having a psychic creature projecting an alternative reality in their minds."

"But it's not going to kill them?

"I don't see how it could."

......

Everything was blurry. Lucas couldn't remember how he had gotten into the Sea Crab. He vaguely remembered Ben and earlier Dr. Westphalen, but it was all very distant as if it didn't really matter. The only clear thought Lucas had was that he had to save her. Calmly Lucas steered the sea crab toward the song.

"Sir, the creature hasn't moved, but we haven't been able to commandeer the Sea Crab's navigation controls." Ford said when the captain returned to the bridge.

"Why not? Isn't there a computer tech up here?"

"Sir, it's Lucas." The tech said as he continued to try and hack into the Sea Cab Lucas stole.

"I don't care! Just do it!"

......

The farther away from the seaQuest Lucas got the louder the song grew. He was almost there. He could feel it in his bones. He was almost to her. He could rescue her.

Then the Sea Crab stalled. The engine died. Lucas was at the controls in less than a second. He worked as fast as he could but it was fighting him. Someone was trying to take over the Sea Crab.

......

"Sir, we got him!" Kate cried. She was still working frantically. "He's fighting us. I don't know if we can keep control."

"Ford, engage the torpedoes. This thing is not taking Lucas!"

"Engaging torpedoes." Ford said when he reached the weapon controls.

"Fire!"

......

Lucas fought the controls, but now there was a screaming in his head. He was going to be sick. The pain was overwhelming. There was nothing he could do. He was losing control.

The Sea Crab was slowly being drawn back to the ship. Then it was racing back, away from her and there was nothing he could do about it.

......

Ben was still lying near the empty Sea Crab port. His arm was bleeding from Lucas's scalpel and his head felt like he'd had himself quite a party the night before but he was staying put until they were able to drag Lucas back from wherever he was going and if they couldn't...but that wasn't even an option.  
Of course right when Ben was beginning to lose consciousness the Sea Crab locked into it's port. Climbing down into a sea crab to see if a psychotic friend was still feeling homicidal while concussed and bleeding was just how Ben's day was going.

He struggled to sit and then almost blacked out when he stood and forget climbing down the ladder into the sea crab. Basically, he fell, but he did eventually make it only to find an exhausted and still quite insane Lucas hunched near the navigation controls.

"I can get it back. I can still save her." He was muttering to himself as he banged on buttons and tore at wires.

"Lucas, stop." Ben said. He staggered toward Lucas and put a hand on his shoulder, but Lucas wrenched away.

"I won't! She needs our help!"

"Lucas, there's no one out there. It's a hallucination." Ben tried again to touch Lucas and again he pulled away.

"She's real! I can feel her screaming in my head. She's hurt."

"Lucas, really? When was the last time I girl could call for help in your head?"

"She must be psychic." Lucas said, but already his brain was starting to see through the lie.

"A psychic girl trapped in a trench miles underneath the ocean?" Ben asked. Finally, Lucas allowed him to take his arm. "Lucas, there's nobody out there."

And then the screaming in Lucas's head rose to an unbearable pitch before breaking off completely and inside Lucas's head he could feel her die. Then the connection was broken and Lucas felt nothing. He stared at the navigation controls. His eyes were blank and he was so still Ben thought that he'd gone catatonic. Then slowly Lucas slid to the floor taking Ben with him and when he began to cry Ben held him and waited for the captain to arrive.

 

 

 


End file.
